: was of short duration in the course of two or three days, the fair stranger seemed perfectly domiciled. She gained the warm hearts of this benevolent family; she had frequent opportunities of hearing from her father; and her greatest luxury was, to forward all the presents that were made to her by the wealthy visiters of Mr. De H-n's nursery. Thus smoothly, and unclouded by adversity, four years passed away; and although it is not supposed so handsome a young woman had no temptations thrown in her way, she had the good sense to reject every dishonourable proposal. And happily would it have been for her, if her heart had been as well guarded against the suggestions of avarice, as the allurements of vicious pleasures; for to that passion her fall must be attributed. Such was the eventful history of this ill-fated girl. The grief of the kind family, under whose hospitable roof she had enjoyed uninterrupted happiness, was deep and lasting. When the dismal news arrived at Valenciennes, it fell so heavily upon her father, whom many afflictions had enfeebled, that he sickened, and soon afterwards died. As to M-t-n, alias W-n-n, he was apprehended the next year; but not till after a most desperate resistance, and dangerously wounding two of the officers of justice. In 1803, he was confined in the tower of the Stadt-house of Rotterdam, immediately above the gallery where the fire-watch perambulates every night, to give warning in case of fire, a distance of an hundred feet from the earth! A masive band of iron was fixed round his body, and he was also chained by his hands and feet to the floor in a way that prevented his rising. Such was the terror excited by his ferocity, that the officers of justice dreaded to approach him. The miserable ruffian was visited by his father, and mother, and sister; each of whom he disowned, affirming, he had never seen them before. He was so hardened, that the ministers of the Lutheran church, in which community he had been reared, were unable to make the smallest impression upon his mind. He was removed thence to Dordrecht, incased, as it were in iron bands and shackles; where he was again chained to the floor, and guarded by sentinels. His manner was gloomy and sullen : he neither complained of the treatment he experienced, nor asked for any mitigation. When it was announced to him that he was to suffer death the next day, a ghastly smile overspread his visage; but he said nothing, nor could the chaplain of the prison induce him to pay the least attention to religious duties. The same evening, in defiance of all the precautions which had been taken, the wretched prisoner swallowed some arsenic, which he had kept concealed, and soon afterwards expired, in the most excruciating agonies, on the floor of his gloomy dungeon. But though he escaped death upon the scaffold, his blackened corse, loaded with all the irons in which he had perished, was exhibit ed, suspended from the gallows; at the foot of which his remains were interred. Such was the deplorable end of one of the most depraved and cruel of robbers that ever existed; and thus the hand of retributive justice avenged the various deep crimes which this notorious criminal had committed. FLEURETTE. The following characteristic story is related as authentic by a modern French writer of respectability; it is interesting and romantic, and may be amusing to many of our readers. The Prince de Bearn (afterwards the celebrated Henry IV. of France) had hardly attained his fifteenth year, when Charles IX. visited the court of Navarre, at Nerac, in 1566. The French monarch was remarkably fond of archery, and as the court wished to ingratiate itself in his favour, trials of skill in this amusing art were directed to take place. On the morning appointed, the contest commenced, and the Duke de Guise, who excelled particularly in the use of the bow, bore away the orange which served for the mark, and which was afterwards found broken to pieces ; nor was the attendants able to replace it with another. Henry, (who was then called Henriot) seeing a rose in the bosom of a young peasant, who was observing the contest, advanced towards her, and with great gallantry solicited it, substituting it for the orange as a mark for their future rivalry. The Duke essayed a second time, and missed it. Henry, who succeeded him, planted his arrow in the middle of the flower, and immediately presented both to the fair villager. The beauty of the young peasant was heightened by her blushes, which the singularity of the adventure had caused, and the young prince viewed her with peculiar regard. In returning to the palace, Henry learnt that the name of this charming villager was Fleurette, the daughter of the gardener of the palace, and that she resided at a cottage* attached to the offices. The next day gardening became the ruling passion of Henry; he chose a piece of ground adjoining the fountain attached to the rabbit warren, which he understood, Fluerette was in the habit of frequenting very often during the day, and giving directions for surrounding it with trellis work, he formed various plantations in which he laboured the more zealously, as the fa *This cottage is still standing, and now serves as a tool house for the gardener.-October 18, 1817. ther of Fluerette assisted him in all his schemes; by these means he had many opportunities of seeing this fair villager, and thus of cherishing in his own bosom, and communicating it to that of Fluerette, a passion, which promised in its commencement to be but little prosperous to a pair so widely separated by the circumstances of birth and fortune. The father of Fluerette observed not that his daughter went more frequently than usual to the fountain, but the preceptor of Henry, the virtuous La Gaucherie, perceived that his royal pupil had always a pretext for leaving him at a particular hour. This observation excited the watchfulness of the tutor, and following the young prince, he discovered, without being seen, the reason of his absence; La Gaucherie, perfectly convinced that the removal of his royal pupil was the only remedy within his reach, informed him of his intention of returning the next day to Pau. The desire of glory, or, perhaps, inconstancy, had already suggested to the young mind of Henry the necessity of a separation. He hastened to announce his departure to Fleuerette. It is impossible to describe the effect this intelligence had upon her,—for some minutes she appeared lost in an agony of despair. Henry, however, endeavoured to assuage her grief, by assuring her of his entire regard.-At length recovering herself, "you see this fountain," she exclaimed, her voice broken by her agitation, "here you will ever find me here!"-(at this moment the clock of the palace announced the hour of his departure,) “Ever here!"-added she, with a peculiar emphasis, and which he never forgot. Fifteen months were suffered to elapse before the young prince returned to Narac and during that period the ladies of the court of Catharine de Medicis were charged to use every artifice to efface from his recollection the remembrance of the amiable villager. In the mean time passions not altogether compatible with the innocency of his first love were discoverable in the young hero. Fleurette often saw the young prince after his return, walking in the garden with Madame D'Ayelle, and one day was not able to resist the desire of passing him. The appearance of Fleurette, rendered yet more interesting from the melancholy that overspread her countenance, recalled to his memory the most tender recollections: he arose early the next moruing and visiting the cottage found her alone and solicited an interview with her at the fountain :-" I shall be there at eight" replied Fleurette, without lifting her eyes from the work in which she was engaged. Henry quitted the cottage and waited with impatience the appointed hour. It at last arrived-the young prince leaving the palace at a private door, and passing through the wood, fearful of meeting some one in the garden, reached the fountain-Fleurette was not there! he waited in anxious impatience-Fleurette did not still appear, he traversed the arbour in dreadful suspence!-again approached the fountain ;-something attracted his attention on the bank, where he had so often sat with Fleurette.-It was an arrow-he remembered it-with the rose still attached to it, though faded a note was suspended at the point. Henry seized, and endeavoured to read it but the shades of evening prevented him -hastily returning to the palace, he opened the fatal billet, and read as follows:: "I have told you, that you would ever find me at the fountainperhaps you have not searched sufficiently-return and search more carefully. The love between us is for ever ended !—you cannot love me more !-Oh God, pardon me ! Henry, too truly conjecturing the dreadful import of these words, summoned his domestics and repaired to the fountain with torches-he discovered at the bottom the body of the unhappy girl. The attendants, rescuing the body from the water, interred it between two trees, which still remain to mark the burial of this unfortunate peasant. Fleurette, says the French author, in conclusion, was the only mistress of Henry IV. who loved him as he merited to be loved; and the only one who proved faithful to him. THE SUN. Hail amiable vision! every eye Looks up and loves thee-every tongue proclaims, In thine indulgent ray!-FAWCETT. Poetically-morning twilight is designated under the title of Aurora, the goddess of the morning, the harbinger of the rising sun, whom poets and artists represent as drawn by white horses, in a rose-coloured chariot, and, with rosy fingers, unfolding the portals of the east, pouring reviving dew upon the earth, and vivying plants and flowers. Aurora sheds On Indus' smiling banks the rosy shower.-THOMPSON. The rising of the sun forms one of the most beautiful phenomena in nature. His rays dart over the face of the earth, and darkness vanishes; while the cheerful birds unite in choirs, and hail in concert the parent of life. The bleating flocks and lowing herds salute the welcome blessing, and myriads of glittering insects awake into existence, and flutter in his beams. Hail sacred source of inexhausted light! That heightens and invigorates the whole.-BROWN. The sun, an immense globe, is placed near the common centre, or rather in the lower* focus of the orbits of all the planets and comets. Astronomers have proved, by observations, beyond a doubt, that his diameter is nearly 883,210 miles; his circumference 2,774,692 miles; and his solidity, in cubic miles, 360,737, 732,256,524,299, viz., three hundred and sixty thousand, seven hundred and thirty-seven billions, seven hundred and thirty-two thousand, two hundred and fifty-six millions, five hundred and twentyfour thousand, two hundred and ninety-nine-a number, almost surpassing the powers of imagination! The sun is 1,377,613 times bigger than the earth, and is 95,173,000 miles distant from the globe we inhabit; a distance so prodigious, that a cannon-ball, which is known to move at the rate of about eight miles in a minute, would be upwards of twenty-two years in going from the earth to the sun. A particle of light, is about eight minutes in passing from the sun to the earth, travelling at the amazing velocity of 211,000 miles in a second of time! : [The sun's apparent diameter being sensibly longer in December than in June, the sun must be proportionably nearer the earth in winter than in summer; in the former of which seasons, therefore, will be the perihelion, in the latter, the aphelion and this is also confirmed by the earth's motion being quicker in December than in June, as it is about 1-15th part. For, since the earth always describes equal areas in equal times, whenever it moves swifter, it must needs be nearer to the sun; and, for this reason, there are about eight days more from the sun's vernal equinox to the autumnal, than from the autumnal to the vernal.] The sun has two motions, the one is a periodical motion, in an elliptical or very nearly a circular direction, round the common centre of all the planetary motions. In this course he carries along with him, through space, the entire system of planets, If the two ends of a thread be tied together, and the thread be then thrown loosely round two pins stuck in a table, and moderately stretched by the point of a black-lead pencil, carried round by an even motion and light pressure of the hand, an oval or ellipses will be described; and the points where the pins are fixed are called the foci or focuses of the ellipses. The orbits of all the planets are elliptical, and the sun is placed in or near one of the foci of each of them; and that in which he is placed, is called the lower focus. FERGUSON'S ASTRONOMY. |